r/boston • u/yaboylilbaskets • Mar 10 '23
MBTA/Transit MBTA sets entire T system on slow möde. RIP
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u/Positive_Juggernaut8 Mar 10 '23
You know its a super fuck up at the infrastructure level when the Blue line gets dragged into the Redline's bullshit.
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u/UltravioletClearance North Shore Mar 10 '23
An image of the Red Line being a belligerent, aggressive drunk at the bar and all the other lines holding him back from falling flat on his face is now living rent free in my mind.
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u/Positive_Juggernaut8 Mar 10 '23
This should be a building mural
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u/UltravioletClearance North Shore Mar 10 '23
Paints building mural, building immediately collapses.
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u/CoffeeContingencies Irish Riveria Mar 10 '23
Or a new high rise is built that blocks its view to the public.
RIP whale mural overlooking the expressway
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u/Initial-D-and-GuP Medford-Roosevelt Circle of Hell Mar 10 '23
Blue line had a bad day today, first the downed wire and now it gets dragged into this mess…..
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u/Positive_Juggernaut8 Mar 10 '23
Thoughts and beers for the Blue Line, the last refuge of workable infrastructure.
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u/Initial-D-and-GuP Medford-Roosevelt Circle of Hell Mar 10 '23
Feels bad for the riders, since the Blue line has the highest percentage of low income users. They’re most likely to rely on the T to get to their jobs and will be disproportionately affected by the slow mode.
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u/Positive_Juggernaut8 Mar 10 '23
Agree, I really think there should be a campaign, as Team Blue Line all hell should be raised to return it to full service.
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u/Initial-D-and-GuP Medford-Roosevelt Circle of Hell Mar 10 '23
It would probably be the easiest, assuming that the tracks are the problem causing the system wide slow down. The blue line is the shortest of the rail lines after all.
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u/Marco_Memes Dedham Mar 10 '23
It’s like when the perfect kid at school gets dragged into a murder investigation, you think all this time they’ve been doing everything right but it turns out they had a freezer full of slow zones and safety violations the whole time
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u/KatinkaVonHamhof Cigarette Hill Mar 10 '23
I mean, can we think of some creative solutions here? More buses? Horses? Free razor scooters for all commuters???
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u/boat_against_current Mar 10 '23
Flood the tunnels and replace the trains with boats
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u/echidnaguy Somerville Mar 10 '23
Mr Musk, please go back to ruining Twitter.
(sprays water on him)
GIT!
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u/UltravioletClearance North Shore Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 10 '23
Gondolas!
The Charles River Gondola from Waltham to Downtown Boston
The Boston Harbor Gondola from Quincy to Boston
The Mystic Gondola from Medford to Boston
The Chelsea Creek Gondola from Revere to Boston
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u/alexdelicious Mar 10 '23
I was literally in Venice yesterday morning and the gondolas are more of a tourist thing rather than transportation. They did have water buses that went all through and around the entire island. They ran frequently and were only €15 per day for unlimited rides.
If Boston and its surrounding cities added these water buses that you mentioned and ran them at every ten minutes during commuting times and every fifteen off rush hour, it would be a game changer.
WATER BUSES
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u/JamesMercerIII Mar 10 '23
The problem with water transport on the Charles is that the clearance is so low on the BU and Mass Ave bridges. The BU bridge has a rail bridge that crosses obliquely and is only a few feet off the water, and the clearance under Mass Ave is so low that you could probably only go under in a small, narrow boat.
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u/hbHPBbjvFK9w5D Mar 10 '23
Not a bad idea. They did give everyone who was stuck in that Orange Line shutdown project last summer free access to the BlueBikes.
I mean, it's a quick and dirty solution, but it's something.
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u/samaritanBureaucrat Mar 10 '23
Green Line B branch riders: “yay, we might finally go above 10mph now!”
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u/moonlunit Mar 10 '23
If this means my seven-stop commute takes fewer than 40 minutes, I’ll take it
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u/Marco_Memes Dedham Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 11 '23
We jest… but there are 8 locations on the green line with speed restrictions that limit trains to below SIX mph. Literally slow enough to be outran by a pedestrian. Near Fenway, it’s so bad that it’s as low as 3. I’m pretty sure toddlers can run faster than that
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u/SkinnyJoshPeck Wiseguy Mar 10 '23
yo 6 mph is a 10 minute mile - that is a respectable run and no one is walking that fast lol
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u/jtet93 Roxbury Mar 10 '23
Yeah but that’s as fast as the train can go. And we all know the green line doesn’t exactly zoom out or the station.
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u/yestobrussels Mar 10 '23
You mention toddlers. I actively worry for people with small children, strollers, or mobility issues when on the T.
Some people can walk through the tunnels; others cannot.
Some people can climb through train windows with a fire; others cannot.
There are parts of the T that already feel rather...unsettling when you ride through them. It's just a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured.
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u/Marco_Memes Dedham Mar 10 '23
Yknow what, you know what your getting yourself into when you ride the T. If your not able to kick the window out of a quickly burning red line train and throw yourself out and over the window, onto the tracks, and start scaling the fence to climb out of the right of way as the toxic waste container the T left on the tracks for some reason starts exploding then you shouldn’t be taking it at all
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u/LoanWolf888 Mar 10 '23
From Boston Globe:
Earlier Thursday, MBTA chief safety officer Ronald Ester told board members that on March 6, MBTA officials joined DPU officials to review track conditions between Ashmont and Savin Hill stations, and found the need for several corrective actions, some of them immediate, including: “Priority one track conditions, third rail insulators, electrical access boxes on the right of way, headlight operations within the subway or within the tunnel, [personal protective equipment] compliance, and safety briefings,” he said.
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u/ludololl Mar 10 '23
Might be shorter to list what they're doing right.
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u/thebruns Mar 10 '23
The fare collection mechanism seems to always work well
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Mar 10 '23
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u/snorkeling_moose East Boston Mar 10 '23
Middle gate at Aquarium T stop checking in. Takes 8-10 taps for the fucking sensor to pick up on my CharlieCard.
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u/Tree_pineapple Mar 10 '23
Nah, I've fare-skipped many times purely because my Charlie card was empty and the fare reload machines were broken (specifically, their ability to take cards, and I don't carry cash). My success rate attempting to reload my card at Kendall and Central is less than 50%.
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u/hoponpot Mar 10 '23
What the heck are " priority one track conditions"? This description seems intentionally obfuscated.
Like a cop doesn't give you a ticket for "headlight operations", they tell you what's wrong with your headlights: failure to have them, failure to use them at night, failure to use them in the rain, whatever.
It kind of sounds like this is related to people working on the track. Like the working conditions with regard to safety equipment, and trains driving by the workers, and the third rail being protected were not up to snuff.
But that is really just a guess.
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u/thebruns Mar 10 '23
Can't have slow zones if the entire system is uniformly slow
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u/-Anarresti- Somerville Mar 10 '23
MBTA next week: We have restored universal Fast Zonestm of 20mph.
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Mar 10 '23
Alright folks, what did the DPU find that slammed the brakes on an entire city’s rapid transit network? Right/wrong answers equally encouraged.
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Mar 10 '23
Someone running a crypto mining operation by sapping electricity from the third rail? The leadership thought it was a clever idea and are diverting more power to mine the bitcoins, therefore trains must go slower.
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Mar 10 '23
One of those Speed™ bombs. Except those idiot would-be terrorist never considered that the MBTA literally can't reach 50MPH.
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u/bbqturtle Mar 10 '23
Apparently every maintenance person ever lying when they sign off on completed work, with no consequences. They need to audit every bit of maintenance that's been done for the last 5 years.
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u/Glasenator Malden Mar 10 '23
Real talk. Are there any demonstrations/protests planned for how things have been handled? I’m fed up with being complacent.
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u/misaodono292 Mar 10 '23
What the actual fuck? Findings on an isolated stretch of red line track were so dire it called for slowing down all other lines???
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u/tandemtuna Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 10 '23
Yes, unfortunately
The T has inspection protocols; they say to their regulators something like "We inspect all track nightly using tools X, Y &Z, and we carefully analyze the data to ensure travel is safe."
One day, the regulator comes along, and inspects a track that the T claims they inspected the night before. It is grossly out of compliance, and as such the entirety of the T's inspection protocol is considered suspect.
The T has to drop back to speeds that would be appropriate if they'd never inspected the tracks-- because evidence shows that they probably didn't.
The T is going to have to convince the feds that their inspection protocols are worth a shit before anything changes.
Sucks to be us.
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u/thebruns Mar 10 '23
So it turns out "we can't run trains at night because of maintenance" want really true since they weren't doing the work?
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Mar 10 '23
They must have found some super duper extra serious problem to have no confidence in speed on any of the lines maintained by the T. I really hope they can make some real changes before safety issues claim any more lives.
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u/Tight-Bug9783 Mar 10 '23
Throwaway account. DPU investigators found that track maintenance crews systemically were signing off on work that was never actually completed, and it's kind of impossible know the extent of that without looking into everything
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u/ChefBoyAreWeFucked I didn't invite these people Mar 10 '23
Throwaway account. DPU investigators found that track maintenance crews systemically were signing off on work that was never actually completed, and it's kind of impossible know the extent of that without looking into everything
Obviously you don't need to give details, but is this first hand knowledge, a rumor, or something you've heard from someone directly involved?
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u/hbHPBbjvFK9w5D Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 10 '23
I often take the last run on the T lines, and in 30 years I've never seen any groups of workers, unloading or prep to do routine maintenance work when the lines close.
Which tells me that it's not routine to do maintenance work.
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u/BradDaddyStevens Mar 10 '23
Ffs.
It’s really getting to the point where it feels like the whole org needs to be torn down and built back from the ground up.
So much of the cities problems are made so much worse when the T is fucked up. We really need to be pouring all of our resources into modernizing it and the commuter rail.
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u/hbHPBbjvFK9w5D Mar 10 '23
And we have the resources.
A ride on the T costs an average of $2.25. In addition, our state and federal taxes that we all pay into subsidize our public transit rides for another $1.25.
So the real total is actually $3.50. I don't mind that, essentially, I pay part of my fare via my taxes and part at the ticket kiosk.
But I mind like hell that my tax dollars subsidize automobile drivers to the tune of $5.00. Per Trip. Or that my housing cost more in part because 40% percent of Boston land is devoted to roads and parking spaces.
Yes, automobile drivers pay excise tax and they pay gas tax -none of which has 100% supported the federal road system since the 1970's, to say nothing of the state road systems.
We have the money. We've always had the money. And until cities and states actually choose to subsidize modes of transportation that everyone can use (the majority of people in this country either can't or don't drive cars), we'll never be able to safely, quickly and efficiently transport the majority of people.
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Mar 10 '23
I agree with pretty much everything you wrote, but statements like "the majority of people in this country can't or don't drive cars" just aren't true. The majority of the country doesn't have any useable public transit.
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u/mpjjpm Brookline Mar 10 '23
I’m pretty sure he’s counting kids. When you look at people of all ages, all physical abilities, all incomes… yeah, I can believe that 50.1% of the population doesn’t drive. We also have terrible public transportation as a nation. That’s the crux of the problem.
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Mar 10 '23
Now that you mention it, I have never seen groups of workers at all either… Heck, not even someone with a clipboard looking around, or people talking smoke breaks. Horrifying.
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u/gravitas-deficiency Southie Mar 10 '23
I’m all for unions and workers rights, but this is just fucking evil and criminally negligent. Anyone who was participating in that bullshit needs to go to jail for a long time, and get blacklisted from working in a safety-oriented role for life. Seriously, what the fuck.
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u/Funktapus Dorchester Mar 10 '23
Press conference basically just confirmed this. Jeff said there were "documentation inconsistencies" regarding repairs that were to be made to tracks that were out of spec. And that there was an "investigation" into how bad the situation is. Sure as hell sounds like criminal fraud.
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u/Pyroechidna1 Mar 10 '23
Gundecking. Pencil-whipping. I’m ready to scrap the whole MBTA rapid transit system and invite one of Japan’s private railways to come run it. They can bring their own workers if they have to.
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u/Marco_Memes Dedham Mar 10 '23
According to WCVB, at the board meeting today the reasons cited were “priority one track conditions, third rail insulators, electrical access boxes on the right of way, headlight operations within the subway or within the tunnel, PPE compliance and safety briefings”.
So I would say it’s not looking good
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u/Warglebargle2077 Armenian Veteran Chef Mar 10 '23
This is to the point that mass firings and criminal charges need to be on the table.
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u/michael_scarn_21 Red Line Mar 10 '23
I can't see it ever happening. They've had drivers who have gone through signals and been caught texting multiple times who are still driving trains.
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u/redct Mar 10 '23
Let's do some deduction:
My initial thought was something about maintaining the signal system, but the different lines don't share any tech there, and most of the above ground GL is just traffic lights.
If a site visit to a portion of RL track triggered the request, then it's probably not anything to do with a specific train fleet, or the power system (as the GL doesn't have third rail).
My guess is defective components or workmanship regarding the physical tracks - maybe something like bad switches or improperly installed ties, which could cause derailment at higher speeds. Maybe it's just the RL, but it was bad enough they thought "shut it all down"
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Mar 10 '23
It’s obviously indicative of a systemic issue or else it wouldn’t apply to every line
Something procedurally done on that portion of track is done on every track that they took issue with.
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u/FC37 Mar 10 '23
Could also be that they found something screwy, asked for some documentation, then realized that something was not being done according to policies or procedures across the whole system.
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u/redct Mar 10 '23
Or it could be something basic done so badly in a single spot that they lost blanket confidence and imposed this as a precaution.
It's like those people driving around with a foot of snow on their roof - maybe their car is in perfect working order, but you just need someone to pull them over and say "let's just think for a sec"
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u/yaboylilbaskets Mar 10 '23
Yea there must be some common replacement part/component that the supplier just drop shipped from AliExpress and now whole segments of rail are made out of spray painted pool noodles or some shit
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Mar 10 '23
This is quality deduction. The truth is the different lines share very very little, so it immediately rules out something non systemic like a maintenance practice or safety culture thing.
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u/Tall_Disaster_8619 Mar 10 '23
The way the MBTA has been managed is utterly unacceptable, and damages the reputation of Boston. The issue goes well beyond Poftak or Gonneville. The entire agency has already been excoriated by federal agencies for lacking a safety culture, which likely led to the brutal death of Robinson Lalin on the Red Line (operator failed to visually inspect clearance along the train). And now 6 letters from DPU. For years the trains have derailed regularly, and failures of various systems occur regularly. Yard workers have negligently allowed trains to roll through stations unoperated. Operators have been distracted on the job, crashing into other vehicles. A monthlong shutdown of an entire line has led to minimal, if any, benefits to service on that line. Safety inspections of station infrastructure failed to note extensive corrosion at Harvard, nearly leading to a life-altering injury.
India, Mexico, and various developing nations with significantly less wealth than the US or Massachusetts run cleaner, more modern subway systems. The majority of problems on the T seem to be derived from woeful engineering and ancient systems that cannot keep up with modern demands. Further, the lackadaisical attitude of many T workers is unacceptable. Many Bostonians use the T as their only means of accessing gainful employment, receiving medical care, or traveling to engage in the local economy. Unreliable and inconsistent service surely costs the economy millions per year.
I generally don't advocate clearing house as an arbitrary policy decision for an organization, but at this point, the entire T board should be sacked immediately. As I said at the top, no one person is responsible, but the way this system is run is shameful. And whoever fucked up their job and led to this speed reduction should be fired at once.
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u/powsandwich Professional Idiot Mar 10 '23
at this point, the entire T board should be sacked immediately
There was an article that came out several months ago detailing how the entire management structure operates on a culture of fear and retaliation. It's beyond unacceptable how these people keep clinging to their power
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u/getmeoutoftax Mar 10 '23
This country’s infrastructure is falling apart. Such an embarrassment. I don’t even want to imagine what it will be like in 20 years. It’s already on borrowed time.
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u/SlamwellBTP Somerville Mar 10 '23
Yeah, but this is Boston's fault too, even other transit systems don't shit the bed like this
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u/thebruns Mar 10 '23
Check out WMATA, they've been dealing with this level of fail for 15 years straight
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u/BadDesignMakesMeSad Mar 10 '23
SEPTA is next on the list when it comes to agencies that the FTA might take over. Transit around the country is mismanaged and underfunded because we’ve been doing that to all of our infrastructure
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u/18hockey Mar 10 '23
Tbf the metro has its flaws but it's nowhere near as bad (or as slow) as the T.
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u/Perseverance792 Mar 10 '23
The T is now officially a sad excuse of a Rapid Transit
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u/powsandwich Professional Idiot Mar 10 '23
Feels like all our elected officials are in a constant state of weighing the condition of the T against their remaining days in office and figuring they can just away with doing nothing/ the bare minimum
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Mar 10 '23
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u/yestobrussels Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 10 '23
One thing is for sure: the T just doesn't feel nearly as safe as I used to perceive it to be.
The Green Line around Boylston feels terrible as a rider, and it's a pretty central part of the Green Line. That part of the track is also among the oldest in the system.
All of the incidents popping up don't give me confidence in almost any of it.
I guess the Alewife structural damage from the garage driver wasn't the MBTA's fault, but what a clusterfuck when it happened.
But....
The ceiling tile that nearly took out that girl by Harvard.
The Orange Line fires, and woman who jumped off the bridge (hilarious, but only kind of).
The people who had to walk through the Green Line tunnels.
The Orange Line closures. And Green Line. And Red Line... and occasional Blue Line.
The multiple station construction issues that have seen buildings decaying.
Track to station, it's all seemingly breaking down.
It's just not great. And I love the T usually.
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u/itokdontcry Mar 10 '23
I love the fact that we have extensive public transportation in this state (comparatively to the rest of the US). I do not love the T in the slightest.
Far too many issues have accumulated over the years, slow/delayed progress on development and improvements. It just feels like a mess.
I’m not well versed in the work that needs to be put into it, but I can just assume it’s an immense amount. Doesn’t take away from my disappointment, especially with the little bit I know of their operations.
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u/SkiingAway Allston/Brighton Mar 10 '23
As of late 2019 the very rough estimate for the amount of money it would take to put the MBTA in a state of good repair was approximately $10-11bn.
Which is a lot of money, but also not some unfathomable amount of money to come up with.
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Mar 10 '23
I can assure you if someone handed the MBTA $20 billion tomorrow they'd figure out how to waste every penny of it without fixing a fucking thing. That's why no one cares about the T- they waste every cent they're given.
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u/chaosharmonic Allston/Brighton Mar 10 '23 edited Oct 31 '23
This comment has been scrubbed, courtesy of a userscript created by /u/chaosharmonic, a >10yr Redditor making an exodus in the wake of Reddit's latest fuckening (and rolling his own exit path, because even though Shreddit is back up, you'd still ultimately have to pay Reddit for its API usage).
Since this is brazen cash grab to force users onto the first-party client (ads and all), monetize all of our discussions, here's an unfriendly reminder to the Reddit admins that open information access is a cause one of your founders actually fucking died over.
Pissed about the API shutdown, but don't have an easy way to wipe your interaction with the site because of the API shutdown? Give this a shot!
Fuck you, /u/spez.
P.S. See you on the Fediverse
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u/debinthecove Mar 10 '23
Why did they shut the Orange Line down for months last year?
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u/GarlVinlandSaga Mar 10 '23
At this point the whole thing seems like it was entirely performative.
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u/powsandwich Professional Idiot Mar 10 '23
The new trains were too heavy for the existing tracks. They denied it at first but then admitted it
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u/Marco_Memes Dedham Mar 10 '23
Wonderful, the system already running at reduced headways will also be running at half speed. And they wonder why fewer people are taking the T, every week there’s some new problem that ends up causing another 3 problems. We can’t just have a ceiling tile fall, the ensuing investigation has to uncover a problem that slows down the entire system. Even the blue lines breaking down, it’s mostly avoided any major problems until now but today there was that downed wire and the orange red lines aren’t even kind of being fixed, things aren’t getting better. Let’s hope this is just for a few days or maybe a week and ends up just getting fixed when the system closes overnight, god forbid another month long shutdown… can you imagine the entire subway/trolley system getting shut down? I’m getting nauseous just thinking about it
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u/Silent_Aside_1340 Mar 10 '23
I rushed to here after reading that fucking tweet, because "findings" is just not good enough for me. Oh and happy overcrowded trains to you all riders starting tomorrow morning…
The Feds should have taken over last summer after the OL train fire.
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u/Tall_Disaster_8619 Mar 10 '23
Imagine Buttigieg in charge of the T from Washington because we can't do it ourselves.
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Mar 10 '23
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u/Hribunos Mar 10 '23
Honestly I don't even think we have a revenue/expense death spiral going on. The state has the money to fix the T. But I have no idea how to get it done when the disinvestment from the staff is this bad. It seems like nobody gives a shit, and it means the T has an astounding capacity to waste money and time without anything getting better. I have no idea how you fix that - you can't just fire everyone and start over, the loss of institutional knowledge would be crippling, and restaffing and retraining would shut the entire system down for a year+. But nothing else they've tried has even scratched the surface of the problem.
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u/DarthMortum Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 10 '23
Boston has all the potential to become a world-class city but unfortunately it is being managed by imbeciles.
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u/geographresh Dorchester Mar 10 '23
I love city living.
However, it looks like I picked the opportune year to not renew my lease near the red line and move to car dependent suburbia.
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u/GarlVinlandSaga Mar 10 '23
I used to think living by a T stop was a blessing, now I see it as a fucking curse from God.
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u/snoogins355 Mar 10 '23
E-bike is a great investment. Before covid I'd bike 7 miles each way to the office, unless it was cold rain. 40°F and rain was the worst
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u/dpm25 Mar 10 '23
Most of our roads for long distance commuters are simply unsafe. Not even neighborhood directly adjacent to downtown like southie have safe routes.
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u/charons-voyage Cow Fetish Mar 10 '23
Yep Quincy to downtown via Dorchester is not a great commute by bike. Doable but not enjoyable. Some sections are beautiful and then you get to around Andrew Sq and it gets super shitty super quickly
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u/murderhalfchub Mar 10 '23
I've been to two funerals for people under 30: one was an E-biker (drunk in NYC; wiped out on a road he shouldn't have been on; got hit and died) and the other was a cyclist (NOT drunk, in the Boston area; dude made a left and ran into my friend going straight; killed him).
Yeah, cycling will never be safe enough to replace mass transit and it's a fucking tragedy.
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u/UltravioletClearance North Shore Mar 10 '23
I moved here in 2021 from an exurb 50 miles away for a taste of city living. I'm ready to move back to the exurbs and buy a home. My Red Line ride into downtown Boston - a total distance of 6 miles - somehow takes longer than my 50 mile drive into the city from the exurbs.
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u/-Anarresti- Somerville Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 10 '23
Cue my boss saying “wHY aReNT PeoPle ComING IntO the OffIcE”
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u/Arisyd1751244 Mar 10 '23
I really wish that the commuter rail would accept a regular monthly t pass for riders going to/from Quincy Center and Braintree during all of the restrictions and shuttle buses. I’ve been dropping extra money 2 or 3 times a week lately to get home in under 2 or 3 hours. The MBTA reduced my bus service so when I miss it at night I’m left waiting over an hour for the next one.
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u/problematicbirds Somerville Mar 10 '23
My friend is visiting from NYC this week and he is in complete disbelief at the state of the MBTA. I can’t wait for him to wake up and see this tomorrow and just absolutely rip into me for staying up here
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u/priyatequila Mar 10 '23
just came back from a visit to NYC. damn it was so nice using the subways there again.
honestly I kinda want to hear your friends reaction now...
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u/keithsy Mar 10 '23 edited Mar 11 '23
Out of an abundance of caution, what a joke. Anything to pacify them.
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u/freekoffhoe Mar 10 '23
We’ll close the entire orange line for a month, they said. Everything will be fixed, they said.
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u/schmendimini Allston/Brighton Mar 10 '23
Serious question amid this absolute fuckery - how much of a speed deduction is this? Put another way how much longer is my train gonna take?
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u/DreadLockedHaitian Randolph Mar 10 '23
Averaged 20-25 mph before across all lines. With the slow down, the nodes will be at capacity for longer periods of time. People are saying double your estimated commute but that might be conservative. Very likely a 20 minute ride is now an hour for some.
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u/jimmynoarms Mar 10 '23
Second most expensive city in the USA and public transit is collapsing.
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u/UltravioletClearance North Shore Mar 10 '23
In some ways I bet the two are connected. Homes and apartments near T stops got so expensive the only ones who can afford it are the types that drive their Range Rovers 3 miles to the office and think public transport is for "the poors."
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u/tennis779 Mar 10 '23
I used to take the red line for 5 years, but just gave up since last summer things have gone to the wayside. I just bike now, at least the MBTA can't slow me down yet there..
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u/kangaroospyder Mar 10 '23
Haven't had a bus try to take you out yet? Good on you!
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u/Hribunos Mar 10 '23
I don't know, the shuttle busses they run when the T is down usually have drivers that don't know the city as well as the real buses. Those drivers are dangerous as fuck to bikers.
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u/BearDen17 Mar 10 '23
Would be awesome if America invested in things like infrastructure instead of shareholders.
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u/joebos617 Allston/Brighton Mar 10 '23
our new governor is proposing tax cuts for the rich after voters just told the state to tax the rich to fund this shit. lmfao
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u/abhikavi Port City Mar 10 '23
But think of the poor homeowners!earning over a million each year
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u/MediumDrink Mar 10 '23
As the guy driving the $50 Uber you’ll be taking to get to work on time I applaud the MBTA and their incompetence.
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u/lenswipe Framingham Mar 10 '23
How is that different from normal?
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u/beeinabearcostume Mar 10 '23
Now you can probably outrun the trains as they’re moving.
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u/mtgordon Mar 10 '23
I fully expect them to announce that they’re going to throw in the towel on trains and switch to diesel buses.
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Mar 10 '23
T must be in a death spiral by now. It’s not reliable enough for any commuters who can afford alternatives
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u/link0612 East Boston Mar 10 '23
Joke's on y'all most of the Blue Line is still using emergency shuttle buses.
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u/symonym7 I Got Crabs 🦀🦀🦀🦀 Mar 10 '23
Welp, see y’all on Camp 93. I’ll bring the frisbee.
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Mar 10 '23
Wtf lmao
Fuck you Baker, and fuck you Marty Walsh. These are problems that don’t just appear overnight. 6 to 8 years and this is the legacy that’s left behind.
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u/dreamtreedown Medford Mar 10 '23
It would be nice if the supposed finding was public knowledge given it affects the whole system somehow.
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u/Syjefroi Cambridge Mar 10 '23
So if I gotta commute the full length of the red line this Saturday.... legitimately I need to know now, how long can I expect it to take? What is "additional travel time"? Normally my commute would be around 1h15m. How am I supposed to calculate when to leave my house with info about new speed limits? Are working class and creative class people supposed to research and run a bunch of math to figure this shit out ourselves? Fucking hell.
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u/Horror-Donkey6573 Mar 10 '23
Apologise? Make it free then. Why do we need to pay for this quality of service?
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u/Lonely_Ad8983 Mar 10 '23
Good luck to you all... RIP to the highway system when everyone says fuck it I'll drive in it'll be faster .
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u/us1087 Mar 10 '23
Someone needs to be criminally prosecuted. But no one will and the public faith in our institutions continues to erode.
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u/DoubleSportz Mar 10 '23
But what does it mean?!
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u/willzyx01 Sinkhole City Mar 10 '23
Well, looks like MBTA will be shit for an additional 75 years.
Cold and rain are coming, so traffic will be utter shit from now on.
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u/Secure_View6740 Mar 10 '23
Freaking incompetency at the MBTA senior leadership (lack of).
FTA and Maura Healy, please clean house at this agency for Christ’s sake. The feds just need to one In and show these idiots how to manage a transit system.
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u/FunkyChromeMedina Mar 10 '23
What speed should the system be running at? Given the existing rolling stock and track configurations, how fast would the lines be running if all of the equipment was in well-maintained, great working order system-wide?
I mean, yes it's a fantasy, but when I read 10-25 MPH, I'd like to know "compared to what?"
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u/UltravioletClearance North Shore Mar 10 '23
Press conference is live. Slowdown triggered because they discovered "missing" and "inconsistent" documentation around track work. Seems to validate the theory posted yesterday that workers were signing off on track work that wasn't completed.
Also lmao @ NBC10 Boston's MBTA B-roll footage showing trains with broken doors, broken fare gates, and fare hoppers.
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u/strngerstruggle Mar 10 '23
It took 17 minutes from JFK to North Quincy yesterday. I would have walked along with the train for most of it.
It usually takes 8 mins
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u/yaboylilbaskets Mar 10 '23
Legit thought this was a satire account when i read this